– emily vardy: yoga blog, classes, love

A two-pound wildcat that is surprised by her own tail is not exactly where I’d expected to find any profound wisdom. But, this lil kittacat is proving me wrong, and teaching me a thing or two.

For those of you who don’t follow me on social media – I’ve recently fulfilled my lifelong desire to be a proud cat mama. (For those of you that do – sorry for the surplus of pics, but isn’t she adorable?!) I’ve fallen head over heels for baby Maisy, and I’m quickly becoming that crazy cat lady who talks about nothing else (ooops).

However, Cat Ownership: Real Life Edition is a bit different from what I’d envisioned. Obviously, yeah, my daydreams never involved scooping smelly kitty litter, but that’s not where I’m going with this.

Being the control freak that I am, I kinda expected a “this is my cat, she does what I say” type situation. I know. Anyone who has a cat is already laughing at me. In my mind, though, she’d cuddle whenever I wanted, follow all the kitty rules, and – of course – love me the most. Fortunately, she is very cuddly (on her own terms), and she does love me the best (in my mind, at least). Not so lucky with the obedience thing. There is no telling this kitty what to do.

I don’t know how many times over the past few days I’ve said “Maisy, don’t chew on that please!” “No, babe, get down from there!” “Maize…noo…”

I feel like I’m helicopter-parenting the cat. Although, of course, some of those warnings are for her own safety, an equal number of them are just me trying to run the show. I’m going to have to accept the fact that I can’t control everything lil Maisy is gonna do. If she wants to explore her new home, I’m better off to let her roam, rather than anxiously trying to block her from leaving the room. If she decides the most comfortable place to sleep is curled up on my pillow, I am not staying awake all night endlessly moving her away. And if she’s just not in the mood for snuggles, I’m just gonna have to wait. In tiny ways, she’s making me lessen my need for control, and maybe hopefully that’ll transfer to some other parts of my life.

Another, more surprising, thing my kitty friend is teaching me is the beauty of stillness, and being present in that stillness. Most of the time, usually, my attention is divided between any number of things – television, eating, a book, my phone, conversation with whoever’s with me at the time. I’m almost never just sitting still focusing on one thing.

For all her wild run-circles-around-the-room-and-then-crawl-the-wall-hangings energy, Maisy can be impressively calm. She’ll crawl into my lap and settle in, and within minutes be purring like an engine, deep in lil kitty dreams. I spent ages lying down with her the other day, just listening to her purrs and feeling her heartbeat. I’m by no means extremely knowledgable on different types of meditation, but I feel like there should be one involving cats. Just sitting, lying, doing nothing just being with her grounding presence is such a calming experience.

Such a wise lil kittacat.

So – she’s got an edge on me on the spiritual side of the yoga practice, already. Asana side of things, not so much. So far she’s fairly uninterested as I flow through my yoga practice. Not giving up hope though – Rachel Brathen has goats that do yoga with her, so anything’s possible. I’ll make a yogi out of her yet!

Anyway, thanks for reading my kitty rambles. I’ll try to keep my cat-ladying to a minimum and stick to the yoga talk here as much as possible going forward.
The kitty in me meows to the kitty in you, Namaste ❤